A Whale of a Baby Quilt

A friend at work is having a baby, and of course, that means a baby quilt is in order.  This is my second one. The first was pieced in batiks with a flannel back.  I did FMQ meandering to quilt it.  It was so fun doing that on a small quilt!  It is so easy and goes so fast!  Unfortunately, no photos!  Doh!

However, for this one, I did not set myself an easy task!  After spending weeks pinning every fish fabric...wait, let's back up a minute...my work friend is a marine biologist, so of course, her baby needs fish fabric!  Well, after pinning about every fish fabric that's out there (fish, not nautical), I stepped into Piper's Quilts & Comforts in SLC, Utah.  It's a little house with a few rooms out front that are the store.  There's some fabric, some knitting stuff, and of course, their original quilt designs.  I saw this one on the wall and just loved it!  The cute little bird is their signature, so you'll see it on all their designs.

I cAn sPeak WHALe!

The bird, whale and fishes were machine appliqued to the top, then I sandwiched and quilted.  I used a stabilizer underneath the bigger pieces when doing machine applique.

They didn't have a kit made up at the moment for this beauty, but they shipped it to me for free once it was ready, and get this!  Bias binding was included!  All I really needed to supply was batting and thread; the top, back, and binding were included.  What a deal!

Of course, I had never appliqued - hand or machine - so I was stepping into untested waters!  After a few iron mishaps with the fusible web, I managed to get the hang of it.  TIP: Did you know that stainless steel cleaner is great for cleaning the pressing plate of your iron?  Also try Goo Gone and good, ol' baking soda.  I used a baking soda and water paste on my stovetop the other day.  I let it sit until it dried, then used a wet rag and the caked on grease, etc., came right off!

I had so much fun playing with stitches and doing FMQ on this one.  I really like playing around with the design.  Of course, my Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.0 did not play nice with tension when using a different color thread in the bobbin than the top.  I wanted to use a cream thread in the bobbin all the way through, and different colors on the top to match the fabrics, but no matter what I did, the top thread was slightly peeking out on the back, and it was most noticeable when quilting the blue ocean.

Cute Back!

I just had my machine serviced in April, so I'm wondering if it needs to go back.  Usually I use the same color thread, and you can't tell if there is a minor tension problem.  But, even when I had the SAME thread (just a different color), the tension was NOT perfect.  I was using the sensormatic foot; I can't find my spring foot.  I might have to buy a new one, because I've looked everywhere!  And that might have fixed it.  Or not.

Here fishy, fishy, fishy...FISHY!

Striped binding - LOVE!

This is finished quilt #5.